Seumas Milne's Blog, page 4
April 8, 2015
The US isn’t winding down its wars – it’s just running them at arm’s length | Seumas Milne
Barack Obama is playing all sides against each other, but support for the Saudi war in Yemen will only spread conflagration in the Middle East
So relentless has the violence convulsing the Middle East become that an attack on yet another Arab country and its descent into full-scale war barely registers in the rest of the world. That’s how it has been with the onslaught on impoverished Yemen by western-backed Saudi Arabia and a string of other Gulf dictatorships.
Barely two weeks into their bombardment from air and sea, more than 500 have been killed and the Red Cross is warning of a “catastrophe” in the port of Aden. Where half a century ago Yemenis were tortured and killed by British colonial troops, Houthi rebels from the north are now fighting Saudi-backed forces loyal to the ousted President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Up to 40 civilians sheltering at a UN refugee camp in the poorest country in the Arab world were killed in a single Saudi air attack last week.
Related: Somalia lends support to Saudi-led fight against Houthis in Yemen
For the Saudis, Yemen is about enforcing their control of the Arabian peninsula and their leadership of the Sunni world
A tilt towards Iran can be offset with war in Yemen or Syria. Something similar can be seen in Latin America
Continue reading...
April 1, 2015
David Cameron’s corporate champions fear progressive Britain. But voters don’t | Seumas Milne
For weeks, David Cameron and George Osborne have been pressing traditional Tory buttons. Pre-election tax cuts have been announced, the economy declared a Conservative triumph, well-heeled pensioners bribed, Islamophobes dog-whistled to, and Ed Miliband portrayed as the puppet of a sinister Scottish plot to hijack Britain. But so far none of it seems to be working. With only five weeks left till polling day, the usual boost enjoyed by the governing party in the run-up to an election has yet to happen. The Tories are still stubbornly polling in the low 30s, barely level pegging with a Labour leader dismissed as unelectable.
So on Wednesday, the next trick in the playbook was deployed. A letter from 100 “business chiefs”, warning that Labour would “put the recovery at risk”, was emblazoned across the Daily Telegraph’s front page as if it were a major global event. It can hardly be a huge surprise to anyone that some of the wealthiest corporate executives in Britain are opposed to a party that wants to increase the top rate of tax, reverse the latest Tory cut in corporation tax and scrap 90% of the zero-hours contracts their companies dine off.
Related: More than 100 business leaders sign letter backing Tories
If last week's broadcast grilling is anything to go by, Cameron will come off worse than his Labour opponent
Continue reading...March 4, 2015
The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war | Seumas Milne
Politicians and the media are using Vladimir Putin and Ukraine to justify military expansionism. It’s dangerous folly
A quarter of a century after the end of the cold war, the “Russian threat” is unmistakably back. Vladimir Putin, Britain’s defence secretary Michael Fallon declares, is as great a danger to Europe as “Islamic State”. There may be no ideological confrontation, and Russia may be a shadow of its Soviet predecessor, but the anti-Russian drumbeat has now reached fever pitch.
And much more than in Soviet times, the campaign is personal. It’s all about Putin. The Russian president is an expansionist dictator who has launched a “shameless aggression”. He is the epitome of “political depravity”, “carving up” his neighbours as he crushes dissent at home, and routinely is compared to Hitler. Putin has now become a cartoon villain and Russia the target of almost uniformly belligerent propaganda across the western media. Anyone who questions the dominant narrative on Ukraine – from last year’s overthrow of the elected president and the role of Ukrainian far right to war crimes carried out by Kiev’s forces – is dismissed as a Kremlin dupe.
Related: Ukraine has ignored the far right for too long – it must wake up to the danger | Volodymyr Ishchenko
Most Russians want Putin to take a tougher stand ‘because of their experience of the past 25 years'
Related: Nato expansion and the Ukraine conflict | Letters
Continue reading...February 27, 2015
Seumas Milne on Pinkoes and Traitors by Jean Seaton – review: my father, the BBC and a very British coup
The official history of the BBC misrepresents the removal of the director general in 1987, argues his son Seumas Milne. And the corporation has never recovered
It must be galling for true believers in Margaret Thatcher’s privatising mission that 35 years after she launched it two of the country’s most popular institutions, the NHS and the BBC, are still publicly owned. It doesn’t quite fit the tale of the triumph of the market. Both organisations still deliver prized universal public services, anathema to the neoliberal mindset. But both also bear the scars of the Thatcherite onslaught, continued under New Labour and Tory governments, including in the form of outsourcing and internal markets.
In the case of the BBC, its political independence has repeatedly been attacked and its journalism cowed. One of the most bizarre myths about the corporation, recycled ceaselessly in the conservative press, is that the BBC has a leftwing bias. As one academic study after another has demonstrated, the opposite is the case. From the coverage of wars to economics, it has a pro-government, elite and corporate anchor. The BBC is full of Conservatives and former New Labour apparatchiks with almost identical views about politics, business and the world. Executives have stuffed their pockets with public money. And far from programme outsourcing increasing independent creativity, it has simply turned some former employees into wealthy “entrepreneurs”, while enforcing a safety-first editorial regime.
Related: War on the BBC: the triumphs and turbulence of the Thatcher years
Related: HSBC files: Rona Fairhead declines to answer queries about activities at Swiss bank
Continue reading...February 25, 2015
Al-Qaida planning kamikaze attacks on ships in Mediterranean, cables claim
Leaked document from Russian intelligence agency claims north African branch wants to extend its range to Europe with marine unit
Al-Qaida has developed a seaborne unit to attack targets around the Mediterranean, according to a confidential report from Russian intelligence, one of a cache of secret documents from spy agencies around the world tracking jihadi terrorist groups.
According to the Russians, North African al-Qaida (Aqim – al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb) has established a 60-strong team of suicide bombers to plant mines under the hull of ships and to use small, fast craft for kamikaze attacks.
Continue reading...Water-sucking plants and the life of a spy - video
Spies, lies and fantasies: leaked cables lift lid on work of intelligence agencies
In the world of espionage, reports peppered with half-truths, rumours and the seemingly outlandish are par for the course, documents show
Read the leaked document here
Intelligence agencies thrive on impressing politicians and the public with their mystique, exploits real or imagined, and possession of information that supposedly gives them a unique understanding of the world.
Continue reading...South Africa spied on own government to get facts on joint project with Russia
Read the leaked document here
South Africa’s intelligence service relied on a spy “with direct access to the Russian government” to find out details of its own government’s involvement in a $100m (£65m) joint satellite surveillance programme with Russia, the leaked spy cables obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian reveal.
The satellite system, known as Project Condor, which was launched into orbit by Russia in December last year, provides surveillance coverage of the entire African continent. The project has been shrouded in secrecy, with Russia originally refusing to reveal who its client was.
Continue reading...February 24, 2015
Spy cables: Greenpeace head targeted by intelligence agencies before Seoul G20
South Korea’s intelligence service requested information about South African activist Kumi Naidoo in runup to leaders’ meeting in 2010
• Read the leaked document here
The head of Greenpeace International, Kumi Naidoo, was targeted by intelligence agencies as a potential security threat ahead of a major international summit, leaked documents reveal.
Information about Naidoo, a prominent human rights activist from South Africa, was requested from South African intelligence by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) in the runup to a meeting of G20 leaders in Seoul in 2010.
Continue reading...Greenpeace director targeted by intelligence agencies, spy cables reveal – video
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